From intimate relationships to global politics, Sarah Schulman observes a that inflated accusations of harm are used to avoid accountability. Illuminating the difference between Conflict and Abuse, Schulman directly addresses our contemporary culture of scapegoating. This deep, brave, and bold work reveals how punishment replaces personal and collective self-criticism, and shows why difference is so often used to justify cruelty and shunning. Rooting the problem of escalation in negative group relationships, Schulman illuminates the ways cliques, communities, families, and religious, racial, and national groups bond through the refusal to change their self-concept. She illustrates how Supremacy behavior and Traumatized behavior resemble each other, through a shared inability to tolerate difference. This important and sure to be controversial book illuminates such contemporary and historical issues of personal, racial, and geo-political difference as tools of escalation towards injustice, exclusion, and punishment, whether the objects of dehumanization are other individuals in our families …
From intimate relationships to global politics, Sarah Schulman observes a that inflated accusations of harm are used to avoid accountability. Illuminating the difference between Conflict and Abuse, Schulman directly addresses our contemporary culture of scapegoating. This deep, brave, and bold work reveals how punishment replaces personal and collective self-criticism, and shows why difference is so often used to justify cruelty and shunning. Rooting the problem of escalation in negative group relationships, Schulman illuminates the ways cliques, communities, families, and religious, racial, and national groups bond through the refusal to change their self-concept. She illustrates how Supremacy behavior and Traumatized behavior resemble each other, through a shared inability to tolerate difference. This important and sure to be controversial book illuminates such contemporary and historical issues of personal, racial, and geo-political difference as tools of escalation towards injustice, exclusion, and punishment, whether the objects of dehumanization are other individuals in our families or communities, people with HIV, African Americans, or Palestinians. Conflict Is Not Abuse is a searing rejection of the cultural phenomenon of blame, cruelty, and scapegoating, and how those in positions of power exacerbate and manipulate fear of the "other" to achieve their goals. Sarah Schulman is a novelist, nonfiction writer, playwright, screenwriter, journalist and AIDS historian, and the author of eighteen books. A Guggenheim and Fulbright Fellow, Sarah is a Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island. Her novels published by Arsenal include Rat Bohemia , Empathy , After Delores , and The Mere Future . She lives in New York.
For every 'hmmm' in this book, there were half a dozen 'aha's, and not the good kind. Some of the nuance and perspective in this book is badly needed. I'd like to know of any work done to clean up the apologia and focus on the better aspects discussed. But there are entire chapters in this thing basically defending abuse from an abusers perspective. Read with caution.
For every 'hmmm' in this book, there were half a dozen 'aha's, and not the good kind. Some of the nuance and perspective in this book is badly needed. I'd like to know of any work done to clean up the apologia and focus on the better aspects discussed. But there are entire chapters in this thing basically defending abuse from an abusers perspective. Read with caution.
Oof, this book is a slog to get through. Not to mention the many fundamental flaws.
For example: the whole chapter about how she believes communication is overly restrictive today is written from a place of deep fear of messing up and an inability to read social queues. Thereby doing the thing she warns about in the book: overstating harm.
I can’t say the book is written from a neurotypical perspective because I don’t know that about the author. I would say though it is written assuming a neurotypical perspective and audience.
A lot of the difficulties she describes are common among various neurodivergencies but instead of exploring that she denies these perspectives as overly sensitive.
Her insistence of in-person talking over text communication also shows a generational divide. It’s understandable that she’s not super fluent in …
(Copied from an old twitter thread, Apr 2022)
Oof, this book is a slog to get through. Not to mention the many fundamental flaws.
For example: the whole chapter about how she believes communication is overly restrictive today is written from a place of deep fear of messing up and an inability to read social queues. Thereby doing the thing she warns about in the book: overstating harm.
I can’t say the book is written from a neurotypical perspective because I don’t know that about the author. I would say though it is written assuming a neurotypical perspective and audience.
A lot of the difficulties she describes are common among various neurodivergencies but instead of exploring that she denies these perspectives as overly sensitive.
Her insistence of in-person talking over text communication also shows a generational divide. It’s understandable that she’s not super fluent in asynchronous communication but she doesn’t acknowledge this. Instead she generalizes her perspective and dismisses alternatives.
Another fundamental mistake is the assumption that conflict and abuse are a strict binary and mutually exclusive, as if both can’t exist simultaneously in messy overlaps and interconnections. A lot of the book is built on this assumption and therefore on very shaky ground.
And she continues to bring Israel and Palestine into this, for no good reason really, which I’m not qualified to unpack but the way she uses it and the discourse about it as an example in various places feels contrived at best.
I read this book since I was interested in learning more about the social dynamics around a lot of internet phenomena involving shunning after seeing it referenced in ContraPoints's video on cancelling.
There were some good insights in this book about the difference between conflict and abuse - one key distinction being that Abuse involves power over another. Another good one was that, when we are experiencing or witnessing Conflict, we need to move out of the tempting frame of determining who The Bad Guy is, and instead 1) look towards the situation in a more objective light, and 2) work towards mutual agreement of the Conflicted parties. Shunning while in conflict shuts the other party out as well as any potential for a fulfilling resolution.
Another key point was that, when attempting to resolve Conflict, it is a poor idea to use closed modes of communication like …
I read this book since I was interested in learning more about the social dynamics around a lot of internet phenomena involving shunning after seeing it referenced in ContraPoints's video on cancelling.
There were some good insights in this book about the difference between conflict and abuse - one key distinction being that Abuse involves power over another. Another good one was that, when we are experiencing or witnessing Conflict, we need to move out of the tempting frame of determining who The Bad Guy is, and instead 1) look towards the situation in a more objective light, and 2) work towards mutual agreement of the Conflicted parties. Shunning while in conflict shuts the other party out as well as any potential for a fulfilling resolution.
Another key point was that, when attempting to resolve Conflict, it is a poor idea to use closed modes of communication like text messages or email. The loss of tone in these mediums makes it much easier for both parties to misinterpret each other and escalate tensions.
However, there were some parts of the book I found annoying. For instance, the chapter on queer family felt like a lot of weird conjecture with some kernels of truth. I don't get the criticisms she makes against what she calls "pro-natalists." Okay Sarah, you don't want kids, that's fine, but wanting kids or wanting to be a parent as a queer person doesn't mean you want the state to dom you. A lot of "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SAYING🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥" in that chapter.
I also overall felt that the book could have been a lot shorter and not have missed out on much nuance.
I read this book since I was interested in learning more about the social dynamics around a lot of internet phenomena involving shunning after seeing it referenced in ContraPoints's video on cancelling.
There were some good insights in this book about the difference between conflict and abuse - one key distinction being that Abuse involves power over another. Another good one was that, when we are experiencing or witnessing Conflict, we need to move out of the tempting frame of determining who The Bad Guy is, and instead 1) look towards the situation in a more objective light, and 2) work towards mutual agreement of the Conflicted parties. Shunning while in conflict shuts the other party out as well as any potential for a fulfilling resolution.
Another key point was that, when attempting to resolve Conflict, it is a poor idea to use closed modes of communication like …
I read this book since I was interested in learning more about the social dynamics around a lot of internet phenomena involving shunning after seeing it referenced in ContraPoints's video on cancelling.
There were some good insights in this book about the difference between conflict and abuse - one key distinction being that Abuse involves power over another. Another good one was that, when we are experiencing or witnessing Conflict, we need to move out of the tempting frame of determining who The Bad Guy is, and instead 1) look towards the situation in a more objective light, and 2) work towards mutual agreement of the Conflicted parties. Shunning while in conflict shuts the other party out as well as any potential for a fulfilling resolution.
Another key point was that, when attempting to resolve Conflict, it is a poor idea to use closed modes of communication like text messages or email. The loss of tone in these mediums makes it much easier for both parties to misinterpret each other and escalate tensions.
However, there were some parts of the book I found annoying. For instance, the chapter on queer family felt like a lot of weird conjecture with some kernels of truth. I don't get the criticisms she makes against what she calls "pro-natalists." Okay Sarah, you don't want kids, that's fine, but wanting kids or wanting to be a parent as a queer person doesn't mean you want the state to dom you. A lot of "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SAYING🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥" in that chapter.
I also overall felt that the book could have been a lot shorter and not have missed out on much nuance.
A lot of old person shouts at cloud. She has this whole thing where she thinks its ok to stalk people that don't want to talk to her. There's like an entire chapter on it.
A summary of her arguments: lack of communication causes conflict conflict leads to shunning as a first response Interpersonal shunning, leads to the invocation of the state Communication will resolve conflict Abuse is bad, and that we often use the term when there's not a power imbalance We should treat abuse and conflict diffently * We have a responsibility to resolve conflicts in family and other social groups.
What get on my nerves is she doesn't really back up that shunning is happening, as a first response, her shunning model isn't one that matches any organisational behaviour research I know of, and infact …
DNF, 25%
I wanted to like this so bad from the premise.
A lot of old person shouts at cloud. She has this whole thing where she thinks its ok to stalk people that don't want to talk to her. There's like an entire chapter on it.
A summary of her arguments: lack of communication causes conflict conflict leads to shunning as a first response Interpersonal shunning, leads to the invocation of the state Communication will resolve conflict Abuse is bad, and that we often use the term when there's not a power imbalance We should treat abuse and conflict diffently * We have a responsibility to resolve conflicts in family and other social groups.
What get on my nerves is she doesn't really back up that shunning is happening, as a first response, her shunning model isn't one that matches any organisational behaviour research I know of, and infact individual relationships work differently than group dynamics.
Go read a book on non-violent communication rather than this.
Often when I read articulations of the ins and outs of difficult interpersonal dynamics and how we ought to engage with one another, especially those that came as recommended as this, I find myself nodding along as one concept after another is articulated in a way that resonates with and clarifies my experience. Conflict Is Not Abuse was not like that. There are parts I disagreed with, parts that didn't match my experiences, and many many parts that challenged me in varied ways.
That challenge is not bad. As the book itself points out, the conflict it presents with my existing assumptions and ways of thinking is not inherently destructive. Certainly I agree with its central thesis that shunning is ineffective at producing a safer world and often immoral to the person being shunned. At the same time, the book has a number of substantial holes that make it difficult …
Often when I read articulations of the ins and outs of difficult interpersonal dynamics and how we ought to engage with one another, especially those that came as recommended as this, I find myself nodding along as one concept after another is articulated in a way that resonates with and clarifies my experience. Conflict Is Not Abuse was not like that. There are parts I disagreed with, parts that didn't match my experiences, and many many parts that challenged me in varied ways.
That challenge is not bad. As the book itself points out, the conflict it presents with my existing assumptions and ways of thinking is not inherently destructive. Certainly I agree with its central thesis that shunning is ineffective at producing a safer world and often immoral to the person being shunned. At the same time, the book has a number of substantial holes that make it difficult to take its advice to heart in practical matters.
In particular, Schulman waves away the core problem of how to distinguish situations of mere "conflict" from those of genuine "abuse" by indicating that a conversation with the accused will usually produce a clear understanding, when in fact that's far from true. Truly adept abusers tend to be skilled liars and ralliers of support, and even in less extreme cases such a conversation may be difficult or less than illuminating—especially in digital spaces where networks are vast and face-to-face meetings infeasible. Much of what is stated as clear absolutes, like the immorality of cutting off contact with someone, falls to pieces when put into contact with messy reality.
That said, this book was profoundly affecting and will certainly color the way I think about my own conflicts and those around me. It's most substantial flaw is that it feels incomplete and isolated, and I hope eventually Schulman or another writer does the work to synthesize it with the other conversations going on around it.
